


The Fate of Us

by shrdmdnssftw



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrdmdnssftw/pseuds/shrdmdnssftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers dreams of skin under his fingers and dark hair and eyes, and carefully does not think about pursuing that particular dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fate of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, so I would really appreciate any feedback you could give me. I don't usually write in this pairing but I felt that this could work.

Sometimes, it is five AM and the bus is silent as any moving vehicle can be. The driver is quiet, maybe humming along to the radio at the most, and Ryan is sitting on the couch and watching out the windscreen. The distance distorts what he can see; the road looks endless and short all at once.

Sometimes, he is sitting out back at a venue and the sun is cutting into him like blades of heat and the shadows of the wire fence create patterns. He wishes that someone would turn around and talk to him and wishes that he would stand up and start talking himself.

Ryan is rubbish at talking. This is why he is the lyricist and Brendon has taken over singing.

Sometimes, the stage lights are so bright that none of the band can see much past the first row of concert goers. His fingers are still a little unsteady on the fretboard and he feels like an impostor. The crowd’s movement makes their noise swell and surge, breaking over the edge of the stage in a wave. Ryan feels washed up and young and impossibly lonely.

-

The days blur together on tour, cliched but true, and Ryan feels like the only way time passes is in the new words he writes. Brent and Brendon constantly rib Ryan about his _diary_ , but Spencer understands and tells the others to back off for a bit. They’ve gotten strange looks from the other bands on tour. They are young and altogether too popular for anyone’s liking. Ryan likes to take this to heart.

He has filled up three notebooks in the past month alone. Page after page is covered in nonsense scrawl and eventually the lines blur together too. The rhymes become repetitive and weak and though Ryan tries, he can’t quite edit out the way he revels in this isolation. It’s an unspoken rule between the band that Ryan’s journals are private, but he leaves them out anyway. Once, when he returns from a gas station break, Ryan finds a note wedged between the pages of his notebook. It’s two lines of poetry in Brendon’s handwriting and is never brought up between them.

As the tour progresses, Ryan slows. On stage, Spencer pounds out a beat with the kick drum and Ryan can feel his heart thudding alongside it. He feels like he is moving through honey or treacle, slow and sticky and dragging on in the heat.

Brendon is being theatrical and smiling beatifically at the crowd. It’s fake but their fans can’t tell. Ryan only notices in the way Brendon’s eye crinkles change as the younger boy turns to look at him.

-

He says that he forgets how intimate it gets, but the words keep on coming from those lips and Ryan realises how gently Brendon caresses the lyrics. His mouth smooth and soft and gentle and the words have all the more bite for that. Ryan spends altogether too much time thinking of those lips wrapped around his words.

Sometimes, there is an empty back lounge and a guitar and Ryan and Brendon. There is a door between them and the world and they sit, bodies angled together and sharing the words that Ryan has produced that day.

Sometimes there is a crowd and there is noise and Ryan loses his band mates in the throng. He stands at the edge of the mass, spots a few of the guitar techs on the edges of the swarm and thinks to call out. He thinks better of it and moves off to the parking lot. Spencer follows after a while.

Sometimes, he is thirteen again and Spencer is twelve and they talk about this band- what they will have and the music they will make and the places they will see. The two of them learning together to build their dream, and if others start to crash that fantasy, well.

-

They’re arguing again. Brendon and Spencer and Brent are arguing and Ryan supposes that he is arguing too, in that he’s not saying much at all. The tour is drawing to a close and maybe this era is too. Ryan thinks about the times when they have been called up for sound check and Brent still hasn’t picked up his phone. He thinks about the times that the bass line is off during practices and even when they’re on stage. He thinks of loyalty to this dream and sticking together as a team.

He carefully does not think about disappearing into his notebooks and not talking to anyone for hours on end. He does not think of skipped notes in the guitar parts or avoiding eye contact with the fans when they move from the venue to the bus.

Sometimes Ryan wonders why he pursued this dream. He remembers other dreams, of college, of girls, of white picket fences and manicured gardens.

He remembers dreams of dark skies over darker waters and a stretch of sand in the distance.

He remembers dreams of floating and of soaring and of being pulled back to earth by singing voices.

He remembers dreams of skin under his fingers and dark hair and eyes, and carefully does not think about pursuing that particular dream.

-

He’s not sure when Panic! At the Disco became _his_ band, instead of his and Spencer’s and maybe even Brent could claim some ownership. Ryan startles easily and reporters make him nervous. He can explain lyrics as good as anyone, but it becomes repetitive fast and Ryan finds himself sinking into a stupor.

Brendon starts to pick up responses where Ryan drops off and it’s apparent that this is good promotion. The fans are eating up this interaction and Spencer informs him that there are more ideas for the stage show, outside of costumes and acrobats and drumlines. Ryan nods along and thinks. Thinks. And thinks.

-

Brendon thinks this is all a joke. That much is clear in the way his smiles, the cock of his hips, the laughter that peals when Ryan says something remotely snarky. Jon Walker has joined them, had joined them a while back, but sometimes Ryan forgets these things. It must seem strange, to an outsider, that Ryan tolerates this joke. He wonders what Jon thinks of this and whether Jon, too, wants this dream of the band. If he wants another, Ryan is happy to foist off the contents of his mind.

Ryan dreams again and feels less lonely. He is up on stage and the lights are bright, except they are not lights and this is not the stage they have been playing on. Brendon turns and smiles bright, like he has a secret. The kick drum starts up, but there is no Spencer. With each beat, a page from Ryan’s notebooks tears off and flies out to the space where the crowd should be. Brendon watches Ryan as his words abandon him and it should be symbolic but all Ryan can think of is how delicate Brendon’s eyelashes look across his cheekbones.

Sometimes, when he wakes up, Ryan lays quiet in his bunk. He listens for the familiar breathing of Spencer and it brings him back to earth. Spencer is the closest to home that he has right now. Ryan pointedly ignores the small snuffles coming from Brendon’s bunk.

-

Jon Walker stands near the kitchenette area and stirs a cup of coffee. Ryan watches and picks up his pen and starts writing. Brendon wanders in, eyes half closed and smelling of softsleepwarm. The tour is half over and Ryan still doesn’t know the punchline of the joke or why Brendon is making such a huge set up.

Spencer pulls Ryan aside after sound check and asks if he needs anything. Ryan asks if Spencer knows any good jokes and they sit outside. Spencer picks at the grass and tries to retell every dirty joke that Jon has told them, plus a few lame jokes from middle school.

It is not exactly what Ryan needs, but it is enough. A lull in the conversation has him lying back on the grass and rambling to Spencer about how nightmares are the jokes of the dream world and it’s just that someone has a sick sense of humor. He knows that he is not making sense, but Spencer hmmms anyway and continues to tear up the lawn beneath them.

Ten minutes means the arrival of Brendon and Jon and a guitar and so they muck around for a bit. The four of them have become closer on this tour, more than Ryan could have expected. He thinks that maybe one of his dreams is developing well.

-

Sometimes, it is the last day of tour and every one is waiting for the grand finale from the band known for its theatrics. Ryan feels sharp this time, like the tour has pared him down into a point, rather than letting him melt like the day into night. They play a good show and the crowd can sense that this is something special.

Brendon turns and his smile is already full of crinkled eyes and empty of lies and Ryan thinks that this is it. This is the punchline, this is when Spencer plays the rim shot.

The punchline that Brendon gives him is that there is no joke.

-

Sometimes, it is late at night and Ryan dreams of soft lips and dark eyes and a smile that makes him feel neither slow nor sharp but instead, loved. It is late at night and Ryan dreams and is not dreaming, because Brendon wraps their fingers together and they watch the road as it passes beneath them.


End file.
